The Phoenix Estate is a non-feudal type of monarchy that was the elven form of government in Bulwar during the Age of Cinders. In a Phoenix Estate the monarch, who owns a large amount of farmland, lends these lands to other Sun Elves, who become part of a landowner nobility dependent on the king in order to maintain their wealth.
Origin[]
The Phoenix Estates have their origin in the governorates of the Phoenix Empire that became independent after the death of Jexis. The dissolution of the Empire put the Bulwari akalates and republics in a dilemma. Most of them joined Jaher voluntarily, and with the death of Jexis, according to the Bulwari traditions, they had the right to become independent. To avoid this, both the Sun Elven kings and those Bulwari who desired to keep the status quo started to work on keeping the old governorates intact. In exchange for loyalty and taxes, the Sun Elves negotiated and granted special rights and autonomy to some city-states, while absorbing those who had less political power into their estates. And even in those cases, the city-states kept a degree of autonomy, compared with the areas populated by Sun Elves, the core of the Successor Kings’ domains.
In some cases, the transition was smooth. For example cities in Sareyand, Birzartanšes and Re’uyel, didn’t have such a strong tradition of autonomy, as they were used to being part of larger political units, such as the kingdoms of Yametšes and Akalšes. Added to this, the governors who ruled these regions had been increasing their influence for a century through alliances with the Bulwari nobility.
The disintegration of the Phoenix Empire and subsequent wars saw the concentration of land in the hands of the Phoenix Successors kings, and to capitalize this great amount of land that was difficult for the royal family to directly exploit, they lent it to other Sun Elves, who became a new type of nobility that depended directly of the monarch to keep their wealth.
The system was not a completely new institution in Bulwar, but a variant of how the land owned by the temple was administered, with the clergy lending land bought or gained by donation, either by particulars or by the state, to landless people, in many cases the orphans raised by the temple.
Ralkadezim[]
The Ralkadezim, the King's Companions, was the new landowner nobility that emerged with the establishment of the Phoenix Estates. Contrary to Cannorian and Moon Elven nobility, the Ralkadezim’s land was worked by paid farmers, both Bulwari and Sun Elven; and their power was purely based on their riches and their relation with the king, contrary to Cannorian nobility that had the capacity of mobilizing armies, as that was a power given by the king to the governor of the province.
The power of this new nobility varied from kingdom to kingdom. Those in the lower Suran plain were generally poorer and were forced by law to pay their employees a decent wage, but in Sareyand, were the Ralkadezim owned large amounts of lands and the law generally benefited Sun Elves, they became wealthier than in other regions, and built grand manors near the lake Naza.
During war, the Ralkadezim formed a heavy cavalry unit that acted as elite cavalry and the monarch's guard, similar to the Jaher Kadezim, the Jaherian Companions.